Tuesday, December 05, 2006

[blogfocus tuesday] dealing in death

In the vanguard and beating the drum

If ever there was a good time to deal with death dealers, this is it. The known world is at the crossroads as we write and these fearless bloggers are tackling the issue before the focus swings away to more altruistic matters.

1

Getting us off to a nice apocalyptic start and setting the tone for kaboom kaboom, the Tin Drummer asks the biggie: Have we, indeed, actually finished the twentieth century at all? I tend to think some things, such as our anxiety over climate change and the shrill language surrounding it, may instead be ways in which we're trying to grasp its legacy. Maybe we're only just getting started on facing up to what we went through, the vast, mechanised murder, the leaders who slaughtered by the million while smiling and promising great worlds, even the tower blocks which were supposed to be new communities in the sky - and what our civilisation caused and nearly caused.

2

My dear friend Alex, from my home turf, is also on home turf with his fields of death commentaries and here’s his comment on Rumsfeld’s plan: Not doing reconstruction in places where there is violence is, well, interesting. It is probably the truth - where there is violence, the contractors won't go. And anyway, one doesn't try to persuade one's allies. Finally, showering cash on Iraq has been tried continuously since the 9th of April, 2003, and seems to have resulted in the biggest theft in history. Donald Rumsfeld was actually stupider than I thought.